Lynda
Carter's portrait
of Wonder Woman outclassed
not only Cathy
Lee Crosby telefiasco but also her comics counterpart at its best. Not even Charles
Moulton would
have imagined such a wonderful incarnation!
Lynda Carter perfectly
captured the essence of the character from the comics adding new dimensions
to it.

In spite of the impressive ratings the pilot gained, ABC
still wasn't sure about Lynda
Carter, not for
her acting [which was more than satisfactory for the part] but for her sex-appeal. They considered that Lynda's sexy
posture wasn't adequate for a character mainly aimed for young
viewers. On top of all this, in between the shooting of the pilot and
the first episodes of the series, Lynda
Carter went on to
co-star with Marjoe Gortner the b-film "Bobbie
Jo and The Outlaw" were
she made some nude scenes... Obviously this didn't help too
much to change ABC's way of thinking.

ABC
finally
decided to go on with several "specials"
of "The
New, Original Wonder Woman" which
would be used
as a gap-filling show on time slots of their will. Though many sources
claim this was due to a gap on "The
Bionic Woman" series
during a car accident suffered by Lindsay
Wagner, this was
not really true. Confronted with such rating beaters as the Orange
Bowl, Gone
With The Wind or The
Mary Tyler Moore Show,
Wonder Woman knocked
them down easily, proving to be successful enough. Taking account of this, ABC's
politics was still incomprehensible.

Number of Episodes:
13 episodes.

Broadcast Network:
ABC.

Supplier:
Warner Bros. Television.

Running Time:
60 minutes.

First Season Premiere:
Wednesday, April 21, 1976.

First Season Last Episode:
Wednesday, February 16, 1977.

Regular Time slot/s:
Wednesdays 8:00-9:00 P.M. by the beginning of 1976;
Saturdays 8:00-9:00 P.M. from December 1976 to July
1977.

Ranking:
Not ranked in the year’s top 20 series.

Awards:
None, but the pilot episode was nominated for the
Emmy Award for Phil Norman's outstanding achievement
in graphic design and titles sequences.

The
action is set in the USA during the
World War II
years. After leaving
Paradise Island,
the
Amazon Princess
poses as
Yeoman Diana Prince
at the
War Department.
As Major
Steve Trevor’s
secretary, she's ready to spin into
Wonder Woman
when danger calls. With her super-strength, her golden lasso, her
bullet-deflecting bracelets, she fights the Nazi threat, and
enforces law and justice.

After
two longform "WONDER WOMAN"
pilots for ABC-TV, the web ordered two hour-long episodes for this
season - which have come in very handy since Lindsay Wagner's facial
injury shut down "The Bionic Woman" production for a number of
weeks.

The first episode, "Wonder
Woman Meets Baroness Von Gunther",
aired Wednesday [21], preempting "The Bionic Woman" and continued
the comic-strip style of its predecessors. Star Lynda Carter was
pitted against villainess Christine Belford in a hokey script that
continued Lyle Waggoner as the sappy Air Force major and foil and
Richard Eastham as his (and Carter's) gung-ho boss. Simple-minded
storyline also included Bradford Dillman as powerful industrialist
and Nazi sympathizer in hokum only the young could endure.

The entire "WONDER WOMAN"
project could be easily dismissed as the
trivial driven it is if it weren't for the fact that
"WONDER WOMAN"
has pulled as strong ratings as "The
Bionic Woman" whenever it's played - and thus
represents an interesting example of what "family
hour" restrictions have inadvertently spawned. -Bok.

Available on commercial VHS format on a collector's edition series released by
Columbia House Video.

DVD:

Available on commercial DVD format in the 3-DVD box-set "WONDER WOMAN: THE
COMPLETE FIRST SEASON".

INFO:

The first three episodes were broadcast as "specials"
and still under the umbrella title of "THE NEW, ORIGINAL
WONDER WOMAN".
Beginning with "THE FEMINUM
MYSTIQUE"
the series got a regular weekly slot, and was known simply as "WONDER WOMAN".

Two actresses portrayed the Queen Mother:
Cloris Leachman
on the pilot and
Carolyn JoneS
son the series; both of them were Oscar nominees.

The first two episodes from the series were shown as special on an
irregular time slot and under the umbrella title of "THE NEW, ORIGINAL
WONDER WOMAN".

The pilot and the first two episodes featured in the end credits the
still image of
Diana Prince
instead of the animation titles of the opening credits which were also
featured in the end credits from the third episode on.

Debra Winger
was offered to have her own series as Wonder Girl,
but refused to do so since she wanted to pursue a career in films and
more serious roles.

Wonder Girl
appeared in the comics in 1965
but the TV character has nothing to do with her comic counterpart. It
was created for the TV series. Although in May 2006,
in issue #6
of "Infinite Crisis",
TV's Wonder Girl
as portrayed by Debra Winger, is featured in a single panel in Earth 462,
in a parallel universe.

In the first two episodes Diana's spin into
Wonder Woman
features no flash of light. The spin with the flash of light which
became a trademark of the series was first used on "Beauty
On Parade".

SKILLS
STATS:

SPINS:
Wonder Woman spins 29 times during the first season.

LASSO:
Wonder Woman uses her lasso 24 times during the first season.

BRACELETS:
Wonder Woman uses her bracelets 17 times during the first season.

MISCELLANEOUS
SKILLS:
Wonder Woman lifts and stops a car; she gets shot over 30 times with a
machine gun; they throw a knife at her twice; breaks down a door;
imitates voices; breaks chains; liberates
Steve from a wood container; breaks two wood gates and a steel door;
liberates herself from the trap of the questioning chamber; uses a
karate chop to knock Kesselman down; stops a steel trap door;
climbs walls; throws bombs; shows scientific knowledge; breaks in
through a glassed roof-window; jumps through a glassed-window; breaks a
lock; uses tiara as a boomerang; she's gassed and it seems she has the
power to cure herself; bends steel; shows super-strength, bends a gun,
throws 4 bombs previously thrown at her; bends the bars from a cell.